


Monokurisumasu: Zetsubou Sisters Advent Calendar 2016

by JinjoJess



Category: Dangan Ronpa, Dangan Ronpa - All Media Types
Genre: Abuse, F/F, I'm sure Kirigiri will be in this somewhere too, Other, Suicide, Violence, not sure what to tag yet as I don't know exactly what I'm going to end up having in here, will update as a I go I guess
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-11-30
Updated: 2016-12-15
Packaged: 2018-09-03 08:48:37
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 7
Words: 3,524
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8705659
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JinjoJess/pseuds/JinjoJess
Summary: Various Despair Sisters content to lead up to their birthday.





	1. Day 1

**Author's Note:**

> So I normally do this on my blog every year but since within the last like nine months or so my blog has switched over to news reporting and translation, I figured it'd be a better fit here. 
> 
> Look forward to short fics, art, headcanons, audio, whatever. Please enjoy.

When she was a child, Mukuro had liked to head to the beach whenever there was a thunderstorm warning. A short walk from home was all it took for her to stand on the edge of the world, the mighty Pacific splashing around her ankles while the sky darkened like a bruise. She had always thrown her arms wide then, as if to wrap them around the electric charge in the air that signaled the chaos to come.

As she got older, Mukuro found that the tingling sensation was not limited to storms. She also felt it wrapped around the trees when a dangerous animal was about to make its debut. She felt it a hair before the whistling of an incoming artillery round. She felt it in the gap between the front door opening and her father’s slurred "I’m home."

But these were all small prickles, nothing that couldn’t be handled soundly by years of training. They were the shock of static electricity compared to the thunderous crackle of her sister about to lose her temper.

That was why her shoulders locked up in the middle of a Shibuya street on Sunday afternoon, paralyzed in place.

"Jun--" she managed to get out before she was cut off.

"How could you?"

"I--"

"How _could_ you?!"

After some time, young Mukuro had stopped trying to flee back to the house before the rain started. Unless you were incredibly lucky, it was better just to let it wash over you and hope that a more prominent target was available to take the brunt of the lightning.

She scraped the inside of her skull, trying to recall what infraction Junko was talking about. Meanwhile, her sister threw her own bags to the ground, a strangled whimper escaping her throat.

“You’re the worst, seriously,” Junko said, tears beginning to stream down her cheeks and smudging her usually meticulous eyeliner. “How did I get stuck with such a shitty sister.”

“I’m sorry,” Mukuro offered, wondering if she should attempt to pick the bags up or not. On one hand, she felt like Junko would take offense to her not doing it, but on the other, it felt a little like slowly reaching for a dog’s food bowl in the middle of its meal.

“You won’t even pick up my bags for me! You really don’t care at all!”

“Junko-chan, please.”

Shibuya was rarely not crowded, but on a clear fall Sunday afternoon, the street was jammed full of shoppers and tourists. Of course they stopped to watch the unfolding scene. They tightened around the sisters, reminding Mukuro of dogfights she had watched in remote villages. Some of the spectators were already fumbling with their phones to take photos or emptying their pockets in search of something for Junko to autograph. She had to wrap this tantrum up quickly.

“Don’t you ‘Junko-chan please’ me, you hideous cow!” Junko stomped a heel into the pavement before kicking one of her bags from 109 halfway down the street. “You don’t get to tell me what to do!”

“I’m not trying to tell you what to do,” Mukuro said, backing up slowly to retrieve the wayward bag.

“Yes, you are!”

“No, I just want you to tell me what’s wrong so I can fix it.”

“You want to know what’s wrong? You want to know how to fix it?”

“Yes. Please tell me.”

At times like this Mukuro wondered if perhaps she shouldn’t attempt to switch the conversation over to another language. Though she was sure there were a few German tourists in the crowd, she figured it was less likely for them to be rubbernecking than Japanese or English speakers.

She managed two syllables of a sentence in German before Junko let out a piercing screech.

“Oh, oh, I’ll tell you," she said, refusing to budge from Japanese, "I’ll tell you what you did, you dirty, smelly rat king posing as my sister. And spoilers, there’s no way to fix it.”

“Tell me what it is, first,” Mukuro said, hauling Junko into a nearby alleyway. A few onlookers ventured to the mouth of the alley and continued to watch.

"Picture this: a young, nubile junior high school girl, coming home from yet another despairing day at school. This girl has nothing to live for--her mother is dead, her father doesn’t care that she’s alive, and her so-called twin has fucked off to god-knows-where to ‘polish the guns’ of a bunch of hairy mercenaries."

"I assure you, there was no ‘gun-polishing' going on, Junko-chan."

"This girl, despite being so dangerously smart, and arrestingly charming, and so unbearably good at everything--what is there for her to look forward to in life? Sure, the other students love her, but who needs the hollow chorus of sycophants? What is she to do with all of this talent?"

"Ah, Junko-chan? You might want to…"

"Do you have any idea how BORING the world is when you can see how everything will turn out? When you start a book only to have the last page greet you two sentences in? To watch a TV drama and know within the first 5 minutes how the whole thing will conclude? To be thirteen-years-old and be able to see, clear as day, exactly how your life will end?"

"I--"

"Of course you don’t. You’re one of the blessed, the ignorant. You trundle around your stupid life, surprised at every development that happens, as if it were unexpected and not telegraphed years in advance."

"Listen," Mukuro said, stepping in close to take hold of Junko’s arm. "There are a lot of people watching, and if you want to keep the whole...you-know-what thing quiet, then--"

"Let them hear!" Junko roared, shoving Mukuro away. "It’s not like it matters! We all die in the end anyway!"

Mukuro heard the telltale pings of phone cameras beginning to record behind her. This was bad.

"I just...after all this time, I still can’t believe you weren’t there. That you missed my first suicide attempt."

Mukuro inhaled sharply, in tandem with the collective gasp that shot through the onlookers.

"There I was, halfway through a bottle of sleeping pills our mother used to use, my arms torn up from stabbing them with a kitchen knife, sitting in the bathtub holding a plugged-in toaster above the water. And where were you? Out chasing wolves."

"Is...Is that what this is about?" Mukuro asked, trying to keep her voice level.

"Yes! What else would it be about?!"

"I’m sorry," Mukuro said, "Did you want me to stop you?"

"No, of course not. I just wanted you to be there, to see it. I wanted to savor the look on your face when it hit you that your precious little sister was leaving you behind forever."

Fighting down the urge to wince, Mukuro took another step forward, keeping her voice low and quiet.

"Is that why you didn’t go through with it?"

"Obviously. I can’t have my grand finale without you there."

Against her will, Mukuro found herself smiling. "Yeah?"

"Don’t look so fucking happy about it."

"Sorry, it’s just...that’s really nice of you, you know? That you want me there."

Abruptly, Junko’s sobbing ceased. Her posture went rigid and she arched an eyebrow in Mukuro’s direction.

"Junko-chan?"

"What are you waiting for?"

"Huh?"

"The evidence, dumb ass. Destroy it, come on. Do I really need to tell you what will happen if this goes public?"

"I’m...pretty sure it’s already public."

"Muku-nee, that wasn’t a request."

"Understood."

The rain had thinned and the storm had passed. Now it was time to deal with the damp clothes and remaining puddles.

Mukuro stepped toward the cluster of people at the alley’s entrance and swiftly wended her way through the bodies, surreptitiously snatching phones away from their owners. Junko watched her from where she was leaning against the wall, no trace of tears visible. She seemed to have already fixed her eyeliner.

There were fewer onlookers than Mukuro had thought. It was easy to herd them into the alleyway, and even easier to slip a knife between their ribs in quick succession. Junko didn’t react to the bodies as they collapsed at her feet. Her eyes remained trained on Mukuro.

Removing a few heavy-duty trashbags from her backpack, Mukuro crouched and began to dismember the corpses.

The storm had passed. Junko was no longer upset. Soon the sun would bleed through the clouds and return the world to normal.

So why hadn’t the electric charge left the air?

***

_"It’s strange...isn’t it…?"_

_[I thought you wanted me there…]_


	2. Day 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just a doodle today guys, sorry! It was a long day of streaming and work!


	3. Day 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My life just loves to pile me with things to do this time of year, doesn't it?
> 
> Sorry I'm already backlogged guys. I'll try to get caught up soon.

Mukuro tucked the shoebox under her arm and shifted the shopping bags further up her shoulder. She could feel the indentations the handles left in her flesh, even through her jacket and shirt. 

She probably should have accepted Pekoyama’s offer to come along and help, but it felt wrong to bring an outsider along on the hunt for Junko-chan’s Christmas and birthday gifts. Even if Pekoyama’s entire job was simply to help disperse the weight of the presents, Mukuro would still feel as though she were cheating. She should be able to shop for her twin on her own.

Besides, making Junko-chan happy always required some degree of suffering. 

She remembered once someone in their class talking about gift giving culture, and about how it was little more than a perpetual cycle of people exchanging the same amount of money between each other. That sounded silly to Mukuro--not only pointless in a broader, existential sense, but also because obviously someone was going to end up making out better sooner or later. While traditional gift giving laid the foundation for later disputes between friends, lovers, or family members, Mukuro liked to think that she and Junko had transcended such a pitiful equilibrium.

Yes, their system left no room for ambiguity: Mukuro played the role of giver, while Junko handled being the recipient. 

Sure, from time to time Junko might toss something Mukuro’s way as an incentive, but in truth, it was unnecessary. The real carrot on the string was the momentary burst of pride Mukuro felt upon seeing Junko open a gift she genuinely liked. 

That was a rare moment, but not impossible. Over the years Mukuro had made it her mission to elicit that response from her twin at least once a year.

Mukuro paused and slipped into the alleyway between two large department store buildings. Thanks to the biting cold, there weren’t many people out attempting Christmas shopping at this hour. Mukuro slid the bags off her shoulder to gently rest them on the ground. Junko would have pitched a fit had she seen this happen, but these were small, incidental gifts like clothes or makeup. 

No, the  _ true _ present was what Mukuro had tucked under her arm. 

She held the shoebox in both hands, fingers trembling as she removed the lid. She still couldn’t believe that she was able to secure something like this.

Resting atop several folded sheets of glittery felt was a small plastic baggie containing an SD memory card. There was a label on the bag, the contents printed in Mukuro’s plain, utilitarian script:

_ Harukawa Orphanage Incident _

Mukuro inhaled deeply and held her breath. It had been tough, managing to pull off this job and also record enough footage. There might have been one or two kids who had slipped through her fingers while she was concentrating on recording, but even if they had, they were nothing but ashes in the charred remains of the building by now.

If she trusted herself to do a decent job, she would have edited the raw footage down into a more concise format, but Mukuro figured that Junko could enjoy doing that herself later. Maybe it would prolong her enjoyment in the gift past the usual three second mark before she got bored.

Biting her lip, Mukuro replaced the lid onto the box and leaned down to pick up the other shopping bags. There were still a few more empty but necessary presents to pick up before she could head home.


	4. Day 4




	5. Day 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry these are all so short and not quite as polished as I'd like--I'm writing them in the small gaps where I get free time between work, my social life, translating, etc. Might come back and fix them up if I get a chance.
> 
> Violence/gore warning

The blood was warm on her fingers, pumping fresh from the jagged gash her twin had ripped in her own throat. Junko was laughing now, blood spurting from her neck and lips each time her body convulsed.

Mukuro tried to hug her, but the feeling of wet warmth against her body drained the strength from her arms and they wouldn’t close around Junko properly. She coughed, trying to cry out Junko’s name, and tasted a metallic tinge in the air.

Junko’s eyes were dulling quickly, the corners of her lips still stretched across her face like they’d been carved there by an unsteady hand. Mukuro felt the urge to vomit, mixed with a kind of painful sweetness, reminding her of biting directly into ice cream.

"Junko-chan!" Mukuro gasped, surfacing from the dream with a spasm.

Panting, she looked around to see that she was alone in their dorm room. It wasn’t unusual--Junko had always kept irregular hours and since starting to put her machinations into action, her schedule had only grown more erratic.

Still. Mukuro would like to confirm that she was safe. The contents of the dream were disturbing enough that she didn’t feel like she could relax until she saw Junko alive.

As she shifted to get up out of bed, she felt it--an unexpected ripple of pleasure deep within her core. A frigid shudder followed it almost immediately.

Mukuro was suddenly very aware of something sitting in the pit of her stomach. She knew what it was, even if she didn’t want to put a name to it.

It was _that--_ whatever it was that made Junko...like _that._

Mukuro drew a few deep breaths to try and calm herself. As she sat in the dark, the familiar furniture of their dorm room fading into view, she felt the tingle evaporate, and the weight in her stomach began to crumble.

She shouldn’t be surprised. Junko was her twin, after all, so whatever it was that had twisted her should by all rights have infected Mukuro too.

She opened her mouth and exhaled heavily, as if expelling the last of the noxious fumes from the thing that had dissolved within her.

This was no time to succumb to it. If Mukuro could resist it, maybe Junko could too.

No. If Mukuro could fight it, Junko definitely could. This was the entire purpose of Mukuro's existence--to find a way to beat the sour thrum of pleasure that rolled through her soul at the thought of suffering. She would find a way to dispel it, to banish it to some forgotten corner of herself, never to be seen again. And then it could be applied to Junko.

She would save her sister, that much was certain.

With a small, genuine smile, Mukuro threw the blankets aside and got out of bed.


	6. Day 6

As children, Mukuro and Junko often switched places to confuse their classmates. They were in separate homerooms at school, and sometimes they’d go to school posing as the other just for fun.

Their father got a call when Junko’s grades started slipping, though the school realized what happened when Mukuro’s grades began to skyrocket.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some of these are going to end up being short headcanons, just for time's sake. Sorry!


	7. Day 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Mukuro is not good with kids.
> 
> (I am not good with trying to write decent prose in the timeframe I have. Might fix this up later when things cool down a bit.)

_ I am no longer a member of Fenrir, _ Mukuro reminded herself as the toe of Masaru’s cleat smacked the exact same bruised spot on her shin for the fifth time.  _ I can no longer kill whoever I like. _

It was a good thing for the brats that she wasn’t still in Fenrir--back in those days she had split open enough child skulls to build a wall with them. Mukuro grit her teeth, feeling Jatarou’s sticky fingers tug on her hair. Three shots was all it would take. Not even, if they cooperated and lined up for her.

While she begrudgingly admitted that the Touwa kid was pretty useful, what was the point in keeping the rest of the chaff around? Mukuro supposed that the one with the twintails probably appealed to Junko’s aesthetics, but these  _ boys. _

Masaru snorted with laughter as he continued to kick Mukuro’s leg. She could hear Jatarou’s damp panting just beside her ear as she felt another several hairs be yanked out by the roots. 

"...And that is why I think you need to re-evaluate the approach." Nagisa mercifully paused to arc an eyebrow at Mukuro. "Ikusaba-san, are you listening?"

"No." She tried to shake her head but Jatarou had a death grip on her scalp.

"You should be. Junko-oneesama tasked me with reviewing the plans and providing insight on them."

"Heh." Please. Junko's plan's were perfect, and even if they could be improved, it wouldn't come from any self-important snot-nosed little runt.

"What’s that supposed to mean?"

"Junko-chan didn’t task you with anything." Mukuro stood up, letting Jatarou lose his balance and fall to the floor. He landed on his back, pinioning his limbs like a dying bug.

"But she said--"

"I don’t care what she said," Mukuro said, sending Masaru crashing into the wall to her right with a swift kick. "You have absolutely no authority here."

She remembered. The crack of a bullet piercing bone. The high-pitched squeals. The warm, gooey feeling of the children’s innards as they spilled out onto her hands while she moved the bodies. She remembered vividly.

"I-I’m going to have to report this insubordination to Junko-oneechan…"

"What if I told you," Mukuro said, her voice dipping into the chilly tone she usually reserved for the battlefield--the one Junko liked because it sounded so much like one of her own, "that you’ll never get to do that?"

Nagisa opened his mouth for a moment, then silently closed it again, only to repeat the process a few more times. His eyes had gone wide and wary, darting from her face to the knife holster at her side.

He didn’t know about the children in Europe, in Africa. 

But he did know about that security guard that got a bit too nosy.

Mukuro could see the tiny tremors in his fingers and legs. She could smell it--the thick, soupy odor of fear. She hoped he didn’t soil himself; that would only make more work for her.

"Sh-She’ll figure out what happened h-here."

"What if I told you that Junko-chan answers to me?"

Nagisa’s laughter pierced Mukuro’s forehead, snapping her back to her civilian self, like some kind of shrill alarm clock. She didn't think she'd ever seen the kid so much as crack a smile before, but here was, doubled over and giggling.  


"I have to admit, you worried me for a moment there, Ikusaba-san." Nagisa wiped a tear from one of his eyes. "I appreciate that you are attempting to be humorous, but please refrain from pranks like that in the future."

Mukuro puffed her cheeks. "How do you know I’m not being serious?"

"Because it's impossible. Junko-oneechan doesn’t answer to anybody."

"But I’m her Onee-chan!"

"You are Zannee-chan," Nagisa corrected, the final burps of laughter trailing off. "Everyone knows who gives the orders between the two of you."

"I have killed plenty of snotty little brats like you."

"I’m sure you have," Nagisa said, for a moment staring off into space. "But that doesn’t change the fact that you’re under orders to take care of us until Junko-oneechan comes back with Monaka-chan and Utsugi-san."

"I guess so."

"Based on the way things are going now, you are not going to get a glowing review."

Nagisa gestured behind Mukuro, where both Masaru and Jatarou were lying on the floor, writhing and groaning.

"Shit."

"And you just keep misstepping, don’t you?"

"Listen kid, let’s make a deal."

"I don’t negotiate with child killers."

"Fine. Then I guess I don’t have to keep quiet about that magazine in your room, then."

"W-What?! What are you talking about?"

"I’m sure everyone would love to know about what a good job you’ve done taking care of Junko-chan’s latest swimsuit issue."

"You can’t!"

"Don’t worry; Junko-chan will be flattered. ...Not so sure about the Touwa kid though."

"Fine! Fine. Let’s discuss your deal."

"Listen up. These two got into a fight and beat the shit out of each other. I stepped in and stopped them. You breathe a word of what really happened to Junko-chan, and I’ll make you wish you were one of the kids I shot back when I was in Fenrir."

Junko would learn the truth, of course, one way or another. Honestly, she could probably figure out exactly what happened with one look around the room. Still, she might appreciate the effort to hide it.

"Deal," Nagisa muttered, walking over to help his friends to their feet. 

Mukuro felt a throbbing pain in her temple. Tsumiki had told her it was stress, though she couldn’t completely trust any diagnosis from her. It almost felt like the headaches were connected to the Warriors of Hope themselves--she rarely suffered from them unless those damn kids were around.

_ I am no longer a member of Fenrir,  _ Mukuro told herself again.  _ I can no longer kill whoever I like. _


End file.
